Attorneys for Houston tea party group King Street Patriots filed a countersuit against the Texas Democratic Party earlier this week, challenging the constitutionality of Texas election laws they say limit individual free speech.

In addition to representation from the Liberty Institute, KSP has now also retained Indiana attorney James Bopp Jr., who put together the pivotal U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United case. In October, Bopp told the Texas Independent that he believed KSP had an ironclad First Amendment argument to overturn state laws requiring nonprofit corporations to register as political committees. Bopp said the Internal Revenue Service — not local or state authorities — is responsible for ensuring that KSP follows 501(c)4 nonprofit guidelines for political activity.

“The Supreme Court has consistently held that you cannot require an organization to be a PAC unless its major purpose is to be involved in elections. A c4 lobby group’s primary purpose is to educate and lobby, rather than participate in elections,” Bopp said. “Otherwise the IRS wouldn’t let it be a c4. They would say it’s a 527.”

A section 527 group is allowed to conduct unlimited political activity, as long as it’s not coordinated with a candidate, whereas political activity cannot be the primary purpose of a 501(c)4 nonprofit.

A TDP statement likened KSP’s case to former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay’s ongoing trial on money laundering charges. Prosecutors say DeLay illegally funneled corporate money into Texas political campaigns, while DeLay argues that his actions were lawful and just good politics.

“As Tom DeLay is learning, none of us get to pick and choose which laws we are going to follow based on the ones we like,” said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie. “King Street tried to employ the exact same strategy Republicans are using in other states that allow them to do their dirty work without having to disclose donors. They are crying foul now because they just realized they screwed up by filing their nonprofit corporation papers in Texas, where we have laws against this kind of blatantly improper use of nonprofit status.”

TDP added KSP and its KSP/True the Vote project to an ongoing lawsuit against the Green Party of Texas, which TDP also says should disclose donor identities. KSP attorneys argue that Texas laws violate the First, Fourth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. They also say KSP’s suit should be separate from the Green Party’s, and that the venue should be moved from Travis County to Fort Bend County, where KSP leaders reside.

Earlier, TDP and the Harris County Democratic Party filed legal action against the Harris County voter registrar, alleging he violated terms of an earlier settlement by turning over voter records to KSP, which used them to challenge thousands of voter applications.

The leader of Houston Votes — the group linked to the challenged voter applications — sued KSP and its leader Catherine Engelbrecht for defamation, saying she unlawfully linked him and his organization to the New Black Panthers. Meanwhile, nonprofit watchdog Texans for Public Justice filed a state ethics complaint against KSP, alleging many of the same things that TDP is.

Read a Texas Tribune story about KSP’s countersuit. Read more about the specifics of the countersuit at Lobby Comply Blog.

Read the Texas Independent for more coverage of King Street Patriots.

Here is KSP’s statement posted on its website:

King Street Patriots, a group of concerned citizens in Houston, filed a counter lawsuit today against the Texas Democratic Party and at the same time are asking a judge to rule certain portions of the Texas Election Code governing political speech as unconstitutional.

The non-profit King Street Patriots made up of citizen volunteers dedicated to election integrity, are subjects of a lawsuit by the Texas Democratic Party that falsely claims the group broke state prohibitions against corporate campaign contributions and that it should have to register as a political organization and even reveal donor records. King Street Patriots, in an effort to protect their constitutional freedoms, is asking the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, force the Texas Democratic Party to pay attorneys fees and rule that sections of the Texas Election Code run afoul of the United States Constitution.

“The Texas Democratic Party is using state law to try to silence citizens political free speech even though the U.S. Supreme Court vigorously applies First Amendment protections in this area,” said KSP lead constitutional counsel James Bopp Jr, of the James Madison Center for Free Speech and architect of the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United campaign finance case. “Nonprofit 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to engage in the political process without disclosing their donors or registering as a political committee, and Texas laws to the contrary are unconstitutional.”

Although King Street Patriots is non-partisan, the group dedicated to keeping elections fair and free drew the ire of the Texas Democratic Party earlier this year after turning over to authorities questionable voter registrations in Harris County and training hundreds of volunteers as poll watchers there.

“It is outrageous that a group of American citizens who simply volunteered to get involved in the political process are forced into court by the Texas Democratic Party,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and chief counsel of Liberty Institute, also representing KSP.  “Using a political party to sue and attack citizens, and to try to reduce the Constitutional rights of all Americans, is a disgrace.”

Liberty Institute is a nonprofit legal organization dedicated to protecting First Amendment rights and the Constitution.  The James Madison Center for Free Speech protects the First Amendment right of all citizens to free political expression.

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Here is TDP’s statement via email:

KING STREET PATRIOTS: “YES, WE BROKE THE LAW BUT WE DON’T AGREE WITH THAT LAW”

New Harris County Voter Registrar Signals Continued Coordination with Extremist Tea Party Group

(Austin, TX) – On Monday, the King Street Patriots filed a countersuit against the Texas Democratic Party, asking for attorney’s fees and for the courts to declare unconstitutional the laws that they acknowledge running afoul of.

“As Tom DeLay is learning, none of us get to pick and choose which laws we are going to follow based on the ones we like,” said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie. “King Street tried to employ the exact same strategy Republicans are using in other states that allow them to do their dirty work without having to disclose donors. They are crying foul now because they just realized they screwed up by filing their nonprofit corporation papers in Texas, where we have laws against this kind of blatantly improper use of nonprofit status.”

Despite volumes of evidence to the contrary, the Tea Party group alleges it is a nonpartisan group. The original suit by the TDP alleged that the King Street Patriots broke the law by conducting itself as an unregistered political action committee – by refusing to turn over donor records, which is public information under Texas law, and by engaging in activities intended to benefit Republican candidates, which constitutes an illegal corporate contribution.  King Street’s general counsel is James Bopp, Jr, the attorney from the Citizens United Supreme Court case that cleared the way for unlimited undisclosed campaign spending.

“The idea that this group ever intended to be nonpartisan is absurd,” said Richie. “But if there was any doubt after they worked exclusively with Republican campaigns and harassed minority voters at Democratic polling sites, the newly sworn-in Voter Registrar was recently quoted talking about his plans to coordinate with this extremist Republican group.”

Republican Don Sumners was recently sworn-in as the new Harris County Tax Assessor-Voter Registrar. In a recent Houston Chronicle profile he was quoted as saying that if County Judge Ed Emmett tries to create a nonpartisan Election Administration Office, “his first call will be to the King Street Patriots, the tea party group that rooted through the voter rolls looking for voter registration fraud this summer” [Source: Houston Chronicle, 11/14/10].

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(Image: Flickr Creative Commons/jetheriot; From “HANDS: A Pictorial Archive from Nineteenth-Century Sources” by Jim Harter; Thumbnail image: kingstreetpatriots.org)